In a bold move that will call upon its viewers to totally immerse themselves in the seamier side of life in late-1920s Germany, WTTW-Ch. 11 is devoting much of its late-night April programming to a single film--Rainer Werner Fassbinder`s 15 1/2-hour version of Alfred Doblin`s epic novel,

``Berlin Alexanderplatz.``

Published in 1929 and translated into English in 1931, ``Berlin Alexanderplatz`` (which often has been compared to James Joyce`s ``Ulysses``) tells the story of Franz Biberkopf, an oafishly simple-minded man who has just been released from prison after serving four years for the murder of his prostitute-mistress.

While Franz is determined to live a ``decent life,`` that isn`t easy to do in late-1920s Berlin.

To mention a few of his uniformly ill-fated adventures, Franz becomes involved with a gang of thieves, loses an arm when he is run over by a car and sets up housekeeping with a series of new floozies (one of whom is strangled by the man Franz thinks of as his best friend). Finally, having lapsed into a catatonic stupor, Franz is hauled away to a mental ward--which seems the better part of wisdom, given all that he has endured.

Regarded as a classic in Germany and described by critic Martin Seymour-Smith as ``very nearly a great novel,`` ``Berlin Alexanderplatz`` has fascinated a great many readers over the years. But perhaps none of them has become more caught up in the book than Rainer Werner Fassbinder--the chief figure in the ``New German Cinema,`` who directed more than 40 films between 1969 and 1982, when he died of drug overdose at age 36.

``It reached a point,`` Fassbinder once said, recalling his initial teenage encounter with Doblin`s novel, ``where I was no longer reading, but rather living, suffering, despairing, fearing.``

And when he re-read ``Berlin Alexanderplatz`` as a young man, Fassbinder decided that ``an enormous part of myself, my attitudes, my reactions, so many of the things I had considered all my own, were none other than those described by Doblin. I had unconsciously made Doblin`s fantasy my own life.`` Having paid homage to the novel several times in his career (the director himself plays a character called Franz Biberkopf in his 1975 film, ``Fox and His Friends``), Fassbinder was eager to tackle ``Berlin Alexanderplatz`` head on. And in 1979 he got his chance, when two televison networks (one German, one Italian) provided Fassbinder with the $6 million he needed to complete what promised to be an immense undertaking.

Made in 11 months, Fassbinder`s film was designed to be, in the words of its German co-producer, Gunther Rohrbach, an ``amphibian`` creation--suitable both for television and theatrical release.

So ``Berlin Alexanderplatz,`` which was initially presented on German television in 14 episodes in 1980 (WTTW will follow the same plan, beginning at 10:30 p.m. Monday and concluding at 10:30 p.m. April 22), has been sown successfully in theaters as well.

The ``maxi-series`` length of ``Alexanderplatz,`` and its division into separately titled episodes, suggests that television presentation was foremost in Fassbinder`s mind. But even among the film`s most intense advocates, doubts have been raised as to whether ``Alexanderplatz`` is ideal TV fare.

``I suspect that its themes and variations will not be apparent to anyone watching it in one-hour or even three-hour segments,`` wrote Vincent Canby of the New York Times--who described ``Alexanderplatz`` as ``a huge, magnificent melodrama`` after seeing it in a theater over the course of two days.

``Its richness of detail, its splendid mass, must be diminished (on TV),`` Canby continued, ``at least for members of the American audience for whom the world of `Berlin Alexanderplatz` is completely alien territory.``

This viewer tends to agree, having seen all 15 1/2 hours of

``Alexanderplatz`` on a television screen, in segments that ranged from one-hour`s worth to eight hours at a stretch. While the film can have an insidious, nightmare-inducing impact if it is taken in large chunks, it loses force when one can step outside of Fassbinder`s tormented tale and re-establish contact with reality.

So one wonders how ``Alexanderplatz`` will play on television--not only because it seems ill-suited to episodic viewing but also because the film has none of the romantic charm and aristocratic cachet that made, say,

``Brideshead Revisited`` such a hit with the public broadcasting audience.

Tracing a descending spiral of degradation and disgust,

``Alexanderplatz,`` like much of Fassbinder`s work, is determined to be as unpleasant as possible--a vivid affront to the very upper-middle-class viewers who tend to tune in public television in the first place. And while that says little or nothing about the artistic merit of the film, those who were drawn to ``Brideshead`s`` sentimental elegance certainly won`t find anything of the sort in the grubby environs of ``Alexanderplatz.``